WotC Rethinking Open Gaming

In a post on the ENWorld boards, a WotC rep says that they’re still reviewing the basic premises behind the GSL. Has Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG play scared them into thinking that any degree of openness isn’t the way to go?

To me, this is one of the largest decisions that Wizards could make regarding D&D 4e. The prior OGL was a huge moment in gaming and helped catapult D&D back to the top from being a bankrupt and irrelevant little thing. In my opinion, any decision to go back on it would be both stupid and ultimately harmful to D&D/WotC. I’ve played D&D a long time and would love to keep playing it. Even if 4e has retarded stuff in it, I can houserule it, heck, publish my own “nonretarded” variant, and keep going. If they choose to make it not open however – then I won’t bother, I’ll go with Pathfinder or something else exclusively.

Also, a “P.S.” hint to all the game companies – the new “Creative Commons” licensing scheme is basically a content-oriented version of the various open software/free software licenses that’s becoming big. It’s probably better to use than custom crafted licenses. It’s easy to choose the relevant factors and easy for someone to understand what you’re allowing – commercial OK or not, changes OK or not, etc. Share, remix, attribution, commercial. Anything OGL SRD derived has to stay that way, but other folks should consider uptaking CC licensing rather than the OGL or something custom.

3 responses to “WotC Rethinking Open Gaming”

Yeah, I would have pre-ordered already but I’m waiting on the GSL. I know to personally it doesn’t matter that much. But they cordon off the whole thing like the RIAA or something like that. I’m sticking to Paizo or something else too.

I certainly won’t spend any money on the game unless I know exactly what I will get for my money. I probably won’t play it enough to justify any monetary expenses, given the huge amount of good and free roleplaying games (some licensed under the creative commons).